Vietnam’s coffee capital wants airport to serve international flights

Writing to the Ministry of Transport recently, the province said it is targeting to attract high-class tourists and becoming a venue for national and international events, as well as boosting activities to turn itself into a “coffee city of the world.”

In order to achieve those targets, the province wants to upgrade Buon Ma Thuot airport so it could serve international flights.

The domestic airport currently has just one passenger terminal with a capacity of two million arrivals per year.

In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, it received more than one million passengers and is expected to serve around 1.4 million this year.

In its draft master plan on airport network nationwide from now to 2030 and with a vision until 2050, Buon Ma Thuot airport will be expanded to a scale of 464 hectares, which is nearly double its current size, to serve five million passengers in 2030 and seven million in 2050.

However, the plan keeps it a domestic airport.

Dak Lak is Vietnam’s biggest coffee-growing province, accounting for one third of the country’s coffee production, with 476,200 tons harvested in the 2019-2020 crop, according to official data.

So far, Dak Lak coffee has been exported to 58 countries and territories.